The Young Turks - The Kettle Pot Story

Episode Date: April 26, 2022

According to a new book, an advisor for President Biden called the progressive “Squad” “f***ing idiots.” Elon Musk is a “free speech absolutist” except when he’s not. President Joe Biden will mark “Second Chance Month” at the White House on Tuesday, commuting the sentences of 75 people serving time for nonviolent drug offenses, issuing full pardons for three individuals who the administration says have worked toward rehabilitation and unveiling new actions aimed at easing the transition back to normal life for the formerly incarcerated. Pennsylvania GOP Senate primary candidate Dr. Oz said, “We cannot move on’ from the 2020 election.” A Florida activist known for his tongue-in-cheek petitions to local government agencies has asked school districts in Florida to ban the Bible. Hosts: Ana Kasparian, Cenk Uygur ***  The largest online progressive news show in the world. Hosted by Cenk Uygur and Ana Kasparian. LIVE weekdays 6-8 pm ET.  Help support our mission and get perks. Membership protects TYT's independence from corporate ownership and allows us to provide free live shows that speak truth to power for people around the world. See Perks: ▶ https://www.youtube.com/TheYoungTurks/join SUBSCRIBE on YOUTUBE: ☞ http://www.youtube.com/subscription_center?add_user=theyoungturks FACEBOOK: ☞ http://www.facebook.com/TheYoungTurks TWITTER: ☞ http://www.twitter.com/TheYoungTurks INSTAGRAM: ☞ http://www.instagram.com/TheYoungTurks TWITCH: ☞ http://www.twitch.com/tyt 👕 Merch: http://shoptyt.com ❤ Donate: http://www.tyt.com/go 🔗 Website: https://www.tyt.com 📱App: http://www.tyt.com/app 📬 Newsletters: https://www.tyt.com/newsletters/ If you want to watch more videos from TYT, consider subscribing to other channels in our network: The Damage Report ▶ https://www.youtube.com/thedamagereport TYT Sports ▶ https://www.youtube.com/tytsports The Conversation ▶ https://www.youtube.com/tytconversation Rebel HQ ▶ https://www.youtube.com/rebelhq TYT Investigates ▶ https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCwNJt9PYyN1uyw2XhNIQMMA #TYT #TheYoungTurks #BreakingNews https://youtu.be/bQHSo7vFSsA https://youtu.be/ep47qvJVMzo https://youtu.be/Sn-x9oLA44c https://youtu.be/dD3jfqbI3SI https://youtu.be/v1n7hLVekCk https://youtu.be/vcHkapLbLSg https://youtu.be/qiU6VScEJaQ https://youtu.be/d56j38Yzpcc https://youtu.be/jgJxajMklJ0 Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Had a great time. I know, right? Admit you want to go to a picnic right now. Okay. I want to go to a picnic anytime. I know, right? Except I don't like sitting on the ground and trying to eat. Okay, but with that minor exception, picnic's excellent.

All right, listen, I have actual news for you guys. By the way, later in the show, we're going to show you one of the toughest ads you'll see from Rebellion Pack. in the Nina Turner race, so don't miss that. But dramatic announcement right off the top. Damage report, best news and politics show on the planet. In the internet. He won that at the batta-da-da-da-da. What the hell, John?

What's the hell? You know what? I'm- I'm-Iner-Rola with the Webby. I'm sick and tired of John, okay? You know why? You know why? Because all John does is deliver the damage report, but he doesn't deliver the good news. Okay, I saw him in the office today, and he didn't at all mention this.

I'm super happy for him. Yeah. No, that's awesome. So John gets the webby this year. That is our 15th award. Now seven webbies, six streamies, no, six shorties, and two streamies. Award winning. Look, we're not saying we're award-winning journalist.

Today we're saying John's an award-winning journalist, okay, but 15 webbies overall. And Anna and I once won best web host, period, on the entire internets. I'm not saying anything. I haven't said a word. It wasn't a big deal at all. Okay, but seriously, congrats to John Ida-roll, a damage report, and the whole Dragon Squad. Amazing win, best news in politics, Webby. So I told you we got exciting news today. Now, let's do the news.

Well, with the announcement that Elon Musk has made a deal to purchase Twitter, now there's a little bit of research into his actions and whether he's serious about protecting free speech. Elon Musk decided to announce that through purchasing Twitter and taking it private, it, he will ensure that that platform really values free speech and stops censoring the opinions of people who might be unsavory. Now, it's one thing to state that you want to be a protector of free speech, but I do think it's important to look at someone's record, much like I did with Tulsi Gabbard, who claimed that she was a big progressive, and then her record seemed to indicate otherwise, and that

was later proved correct on that. Well, it seems like we have a similar situation with Elon Musk and his protections of free speech because his history would tell you otherwise, not a fan of free speech, especially when his financial interests are at play. So while Musk has criticized Twitter's leadership, he has repeatedly attempted to squelch speech that could negatively impact his economic interests. Musk's history underscores the risks of giving near complete control of one of the world's most powerful communication networks to one extremely rich individual.

So we want to provide the receipts, give you the examples. So let's start with one of the latest examples, which is a small one. I'll admit it's a small example, but it does show that one of his latest tweets has not aged well. Public citizen tweeted this, a screenshot of Elon Musk blocking them. FYI were blocked by Elon Musk. So much for being committed to free speech. And I just want to remind you all of what Elon Musk tweeted just yesterday.

I hope that even my worst critics remain on Twitter because that is what free speech means. Now again, small example, let's get into some of the big examples. In 2020, there were reports that social media platforms were sharing these stories of Tesla vehicles being produced with faulty brakes. Now, Bloomberg at the time reported that there was no evidence to indicate that this was a widespread problem with Tesla's manufacturing. But Tesla didn't decide to fight that misinformation with more speech, which is what free speech absolutists would argue you should do. In fact, instead of attempting to win over Chinese consumers with facts, Tesla reportedly sought to leverage the power of China's authoritarian regime. According to people familiar with the matter, Tesla complained to the government over what it sees as unwarranted attacks on social media and asked Beijing to use its censorship powers to block some of the posts. There are many other examples, but again, using your relationship with China's authoritarian regime to censor what you don't like on social media platforms is exactly what Elon Musk claims.

he's against. But that is the kind of practice. That's the kind of behavior he engaged in. And he loves to attack journalists who are critical of him and Tesla as well. We'll give you those examples in just a minute. But Jank, what do you think? Yeah. So first of all, let's start out with hashtag Anna was right. And so yesterday we talked about how we were concerned that people who claim to be in favor of free speech, especially if they're on the right wing, or completely if they're in the right wing, are hypocrites. And they almost never mean it. And so today, now there is a tsunami of evidence that Elon Musk does not mean it. Look, proofs old is in the pudding.

So if he comes out and he actually unblocks his critics and says, oh, I'm so sorry for all the things I've done to block speech before and maybe give us back some money to the people he wronged, maybe he could get redemption. But as things stand now, he is not at all an advocate of free speech. We have a lot more examples. Here, I'll give you a couple. There's Lawrence Fossey. He's a guy who was called Montana skeptic.

And Anna's going to tell you more about him in a second. But he dared to criticize Tesla's performance in the stock market. The most benign thing you could do, okay? And Elon Musk tried to get him fired. Hashtag cancel culture. What happened? What happened? We'll give you details in a second.

Then there's Martin Tripp, who's an assembly line worker at a facility. And he complained, and rightfully so, about a problem they have. had in their facility. Elon Musk sued him for $167 million to intimidate him. He's just an assembly line worker, okay? And on and on, we've got so many examples. So Elon Musk, whenever somebody says something he doesn't like, goes out of his way, goes to outer space with Space X to blast them into oblivion,

to try to get them fired, block them, ban them, sue them, and just obliterate them in every way. Now, if you're right wing and I know what you're saying right now, that's awesome. I love when the big guy crushes the little guy, that guy at the assembly line, he deserved it. Ah, go get him, Elon. Okay, that's fine. But you can't say he's an advocate of free speech. No, but they will say he's an advocate of free speech. They'll claim that they're protectors, protectors of free speech.

This has been an ongoing right wing grift for years now, starting with people like Dave Rubin, claiming like they're the warriors for free speech. And then they turn around and go after anyone who dares say anything that they don't like. It happens over and over again. I mean, Dave Rubin wrote a book title, Don't Burn This Book, Poking Fun at Liberals, allegedly caring enough about Dave Rubin's book to want to burn it. If anything, I mean, Dave Rubin's book was a fantastic, you know, comedy piece.

It's like the best comedy he's ever produced. There were reading groups enjoying the comedy in that book because of how bad it was. But anyway, putting that aside, you have right wingers literally banning books in public libraries as we speak. In the state of Florida, they have banned up to 200 books simply because conservative parents and conservative donors don't like those books. They even sort of banning math books. But my point is, right wing voters in this country love it, love it. Love it because everyone who claims that they want to protect free speech is actually full of it. Everyone who claims that they're concerned about cancel culture is actually full of it.

Everyone's a massive hypocrite in this debate, in this argument, because fact of the matter is, this country is full of a bunch of thin-skinned, narcissistic, pathetic fools who want to take all the control, who want to control the narrative 100% of the time. And that's the reality of the situation. You see it on the right, there's no question about it, you see it among the elite and the corporate class, there's no question. And yes, in some cases, you absolutely do see it on the left, where if you dare deviate a little bit from whatever the accepted narrative is, all of a sudden everyone starts attacking you pretty aggressively. That is the culture and that is the climate that we're living in. Let's just keep it real.

What makes this story particularly discouraging is that now you have the richest man in the world, you know, Puffing his chest is a free speech warrior when we know it's not true, and he's going to have complete control over this platform, which everyone keeps referring to as a public square. Well, if it's genuinely a public square, if we genuinely want to protect free speech on Twitter, the only way to do that is to ensure that the Constitution applies to it. And the only way that it could apply to Twitter is if it's a public utility, you know, controlled by the government, which by the constitution, indicates cannot censor your expression or your speech. But that's not what we're talking about here. We're talking about control by one wealthy person. All right, we're going to get to more examples in one second.

But I just want to say there is one group that is not full of crap on cancer culture and free speech. And that's us. So we've called that cancer culture on the right and we've called it out on the left. I don't know literally anyone else that does that. Either they protect the left or they protect the right. No, we call it out when it actually happens. And we call it out when it doesn't happen. And it's a mirage and it's a marketing trick and free speech.

We defended Ben Shapiro and Coulter, you name it, and their ability to speak on different formats. Megan Kelly, Rush Limbaugh, you name it, we've done it because we're actually principled, okay? But the right wing has no principles at all. Ben Shapiro talking today about how everyone that works at Twitter should be fired. What happened? I thought you were against cancel culture. They're giant hypocrites, which brings us back to Elon Musk. So let's get back to Lawrence Fosse, someone that Jank mentioned a little earlier.

Lawrence Fossi was actually, and continues to be, a pretty harsh critic of Elon Musk's. He was working as a portfolio manager in Manhattan at the time when he was also simultaneously writing blogs on seeking alpha that happened to also be critical of Elon Musk. Now, he did so under a pseudonym, and Elon Musk went to great lengths to figure out who he was. was and then essentially hit up Lawrence Fosse's employer to let the employer know that his employee is writing on seeking alpha. And he's being very mean to Elon Musk and he knows like that. Okay. So Elon Musk says that, by the way, so Fosse is approached by a colleague who relays a message from Elon Musk. Elon Musk says that you're a very bad person and you're writing bad things about him. Portfolio manager Lawrence Fossey recalled the colleague explaining.

He's going to have to sue you and he's going to have to drag our boss into it. Now, the CEO of Tesla Motors, of course Elon Musk, had actually called his office and threatened to make his life miserable by threatening litigation. His offense? He criticized Musk online. Oh, I love free speech. Even my critics can stay on there, no problem. Really? Beginning in 2015, Fosse wrote dozens of articles critical of Tesla on the popular crowd-sourced finance site seeking Alpha. I would take a close look at its financial statements and write about things that struck me as wrong, he explained.

And he would write under the moniker Montana skeptic, you know, obviously not using his real name. Again, Musk figured out who he was and not only threatened to sue him, but like tattletailed to this man's employer. Eventually, one pro-Tesla online sleuth outed him as the man behind the accounts on Twitter and Seeking Alpha. A little more than a week later, Fossi said that's when Musk rang his boss. After the phone call, Fossi told his employer he would stop writing at seeking Alpha and deactivate

his Twitter account. He stated that while Musk had no valid claim, I'm not going to drag my boss into a lawsuit he shouldn't have any part of. Look, calling your boss to get you fired and even that boss so that he's worried about his own job. I mean, that is the definition of cancel culture. That's cancel culture one-on-one. That is the perfect example of cancel culture.

That's what Elon must did. Right wing, you're still celebrating it? Make up your mind. Are you celebrating cancel culture or do you hate cancel culture? Because it is inarguable that that's cancel culture, trying to get somebody fired for criticizing you. Well, they should just tell the truth. They love cancel culture as long as the people they don't like are the ones being canceled.

That is the most succinct, accurate way of describing what's happening. They love cancel culture as long as they're the ones who get to do the canceling. Inarguable, we win, you lose. So there were other journalists who were attacked by Elon Musk as well. I want to go to graphic three here. Musk has attacked journalists who write stories that are critical of Tesla. Business insider reporter Lynette Lopez, for example, has written numerous critical stories about Tesla.

Musk responded by repeatedly suggesting that Lopez was conspiring with short sellers to trade on insider information, which of course is a crime, but Musk did not offer any evidence to substantiate his claims. So just throwing ridiculous accusations and essentially defaming journalists is one of the tactics that he likes to use to intimidate them and try to get them to stop reporting critically about him. And here's the tweet and questions from 2018 where he wrote. Indeed, very simple question. To be specific, Lynette Lopez, did you compensate or promise to compensate Martin Tripp for inside information about Tesla, did he under the inducement provide you with exaggerated negative info, which you printed but turned out to be untrue?

Now, the accusation was completely unfounded, and basically he's going after anyone within Tesla, by the way, who dares speak to reporters when they're reporting on these stories that are related to the business that Tesla is doing. So this is what he would do. He would do it over and over again. So let me let me say a couple of things about that particular case. Number one, the First Amendment has freedom of speech and freedom of the press. But if you write something that Elon Musk doesn't like, he will attack you.

He doesn't care about freedom of the press. If you say, hey, listen, look, he's just using his speech to attack her. Yes, but there are rules around that, including defamation. And they can settle that in court. In this particular case, was she right? Well, Gigaford's security manager at that time, I'm quoting media right now, at that time filed a whistleblower report with the SEC, maintaining that Musk accusations against Trimp were not true. People inside the factory saying Elon Musk was wrong and he did this with no evidence against, I mean, he's the richest man in the world and he's attacking tiny folks with almost no money, no resources, no power in an effort to crush them and get them fired. And so, again, cancel culture 101, make up your mind.

Do you like it or do you hate it? For me, look, I think the definition of cancel culture is a little vague. I think there's also call out culture where, let's say someone does something questionable and then a bunch of people like to pile on on social media and criticize that person, calling them out. I see that is a little different from trying to get someone fired from their jobs. And that is what he specialized in. He would do whatever he could to intimidate people.

And in the case of Tesla, he would fire individuals who dare cross him, especially when he came to one unionizing effort at Tesla that I want to give you the details about. So he doesn't believe that workers, certainly his workers, deserve a voice. Musk has sought to aggressively discourage unionization at Tesla. In a 2018 tweet, Musk threatened to rescind employee stock options at, Tesla if workers decided to join a union. Tesla fired Richard Ortiz, a Tesla employee who was advocating for a union. The National Labor Relations Board ended up ruling in 2021 that Musk's firing of Ortiz actually violated the law. Also, one other sign that you're not really a huge advocate for free

speech is when you get people or force people to sign non-disclosure agreements. So Tesla also ordered, was also ordered by the NLRB to amend its notoriously restrictive non-disclosure agreements, the Tesla NDA instructed employees that they were not allowed to speak with media without explicit written permission. But it did not advise employees that labor law protects employees when they speak with the media about working conditions, labor disputes, or other terms and conditions of employment. So what he did there was also against the law, not only was it against free speech, it was against the law. So he had to respond to what the NLRB had decided there in basically calling out the illegal

nature of how he was treating his own employees by putting a muzzle on them and not allowing them to speak to the media. Yeah, so I love that you clarified cancer culture. So getting people fired for saying something you don't agree with, textbook definition of cancer culture, okay? So you fight back with other speech, that's another thing, right? And you could say, hey, it depends. Does it get close to the edge or whatever?

But trying to get people fired, that is definitely it, right? I would argue the second closest example of what the core of cancer culture is, is what Musk is doing with all these lawsuits. The minute anybody says something he doesn't like, he's like, oh, I'm suing you for $100 million. Now, Randos don't have $100 million. They don't have money for lawyers to defend themselves against outrageously false lawsuits. Which brings us to Ron Deep Hothi.

He was a critic of Tesla, and Elon Musk just made up that Hosey had run into one of the Tesla employees with his car. How do I know he made it up? Well, he did his usual trick. By the way, every part of this is Trumpian. Sue people for criticizing you. That was classic Trump move for decades, okay? I got more money than you. I got lawyers.

You don't have lawyers. You're an average guy. I'm going to bulldoze you, right? Because he's rich. Not because he's right. By the way, he can do it to you too, if you dare disagree with him, no matter where you are in the political spectrum. So eventually, in Alameda County judge ordered Tesla to produce the supposed

footage. Again, I'm quoting mediated here. The carmaker declined and dropped a suit. He was lying the whole time. He said, I have evidence. I have tape of Hothi running into a Tesla employee. They said that. The court says, give it to me.

He says, yeah, okay, never mind and drops the suit because the suit was never true. It was meant to intimidate an average guy who had dared to criticize the mega billionaire Elon Musk. How dare he? The issue isn't that Elon Musk is a billionaire. The issue is that he uses that money to intimidate anyone who would criticize him because he thinks, I just have more money than you. So I'm going to win whether I'm right or I'm wrong. And that also is deeply Trumpian, making up evidence Trumpian, claiming you're for free

in actually fighting against free speech, Trumpian. So watch out, I mean, if this pattern holds into the future, Twitter will turn into one giant Trump love fest, awful place filled with lies, et cetera. He could prove us all wrong by doing the right thing because it's in the future. But he's not going to. But he's, if this, his pattern shows he has no intention of doing that. Okay, one final thing that I'll say, look, it's not just about his pattern, like I think you can look to someone's past to get a good prediction about how they're going to behave in the future.

But it's also something that I want you guys to consider in regard to like incentives and disincentives. We talk about on the show a lot. So whether you think he's a good guy or bad guy is really irrelevant. What you should focus on is what are his incentives? What are his disincentives? His incentives have to do with profit. And if he is in charge of a platform that controls messaging, in particular messaging that might have to do with his own businesses, what do you think he's going to do with messaging that might hurt his bottom line? He's never going to hurt his bottom line.

Come on. You might think he's a great guy. You might think, like, no, he's my hero. I'm going to ignore all the evidence. I'm going to ignore everything. Who cares about the receipts? I just, I have a weird, like, you know, boner for Elon Musk. Okay, great.

Cool. Enjoy your boner. But the point that I want to make is he is going to want to protect his profits. That's it. At the end of the day, when you see all these examples of him trying to squash free speech, it has to do with him facing potential financial ramifications for running his business poorly. And he squashes the free speech. That is who Elon Musk is, but it's not just about who he is as a person.

It's what's incentivized. And this would be the case with any other insanely wealthy CEO, any other executive who wants, to protect their bottom line. By the way, we talked about this on old school last night. This part now is just speculation, but he says he's gonna get rid of the bots, but a ton of the bots look like they're giant Elon Musk fans. So several people have written articles about, wow, that's curious how many bots are pro Elon Musk. If he did buy Twitter, of which he has, and he got rid of the evidence on

who had the bots, especially as someone could be, I don't know that he was, manipulating public markets, well, then I guess you'd never get that evidence, would you? All right, well, we got to take a break. When we come back, we're going to talk about Dr. Oz and how he is a shell of a man who will do anything and everything for political power. It is an incredible story. Don't miss it. All right, back on TYT, Jank and Anna with you guys, news.

All right, unfortunately we have more Elon Musk related news. Ben Shapiro, much like other conservatives, is very jovial, very happy about the fact that Elon Musk has purchased Twitter and will be making it private. Now, Shapiro has some suggestions on what Elon Musk should do as soon as this deal is finalized. Let's take a look. Musk needs to come in and he needs to fire everyone. I mean everyone. Twitter has hundreds of not thousands of employees. Therein studies done of the donations, the political donations of the people working at Twitter,

98.7% of all donations from the people working at Twitter went to Democrats in the last election cycle. 98.7 percent. So it doesn't matter what rules Elon Musk sets top down if the so-called Twitter Deep State is still implementing its favored policies. Because this is the thing. Donald Trump found this out when he was president. You can name the policy top down, but if everybody at the State Department hates your guts, they're just going to undermine your policy. You can name the policy top down. But if everybody at the FBI decides to spend the next four years ginning up nonsense about Russian conspiracy theories, you can't get much done. When Musk takes over the company, He should do what every boss at every company does, and he should review the employee list and

figure out who is good and who is bad. Man, I have a lot I want to say. But like, can I just, let's just have a second of reality for a second. It's just Twitter. Like, you know, like the comparisons to like the FBI and like the state department, like everyone just calm down for a second. Also, I don't know who Ben Shapiro's been hanging out with lately. it seems like it might be Megan McCain because like there's little valley girl tinged like

speaking style lately. Can we queue up that video one more time? I just want to watch the first few seconds. It's very McCain-esque. Yeah, I hear you and I love making fun of the style too, but I just want to scream, hashtag cancel culture. Yeah. Cancel culture. Oh my God, getting somebody fired for their political opinions is the worst thing in the world. I can't believe liberals want to against the people. He just said, fire them. Fire all of them. Because they've donated to Democrats, allegedly.

I don't even know how accurate that is. Who cares if that's made? Who cares if that number's made up or not? Because the intent is what matters. Shapiro said, oh, yeah, at the end, he's like, everybody comes in and decides who's good or who's bad. But wait a minute, you said based on their political donations, not based on whether they do a good job at work or not.

Imagine if a progressive had bought Twitter or anything, else. And I said, oh, you know what? Find out who donated to Republicans and fire them all. And he's like, oh my God, cancel culture, right? No, he's like, fire them all. Fire hundreds of them because they don't agree with us. Ben, you have always been a liar. You have never had any principles. All you've ever had is feelings. I don't like liberals. I want to fire them all. Don't you fire a single conservative no matter what racist, horrible, terrible things they say. Oh, they have a right to be racist. We have a right, okay?

No, God bless. But what are you firing people who disagree with you for, huh? You never believe they're free speech, you liar, 100% caught. No, I mean, look, they're all liars. I mean, when they claim that they're against cancel culture, they also simultaneously support all sorts of right-wing policies, which essentially like codify cancel culture in the form of canceling books, teachers, all sorts of things that they don't like. So of course they're hypocrites, of course they're full of it.

But also think about what he's saying there in regard to any given workplace, right? What he is essentially saying is every boss throughout the country, it will be unable to conduct business to carry out their daily duties unless every single person who works for them agrees with them politically. So basically, hey, CEOs, put a list of your employees together, start investigating them, maybe do some enhanced interrogations, maybe waterboard your employees, figure out what their political leanings are. Because if their political leanings don't agree with yours 100%.

How are you going to be able to do your job? You're not going to be able to do your job. It's just like the deep state. What? Okay. Yeah. And in essence, what he's saying there, and not in essence. This is exactly what he's saying.

He's like, I don't care how good they are at their job. I don't care if they're technically correct, if they're apt, if they're actually excel at their jobs. If they're not politically correct, they have donated to the wrong political party, you should fire them. So right wing, you're in favor of that? Just make up your mind. Are you in favor? Do you love cancel culture or do you hate it? Which one is it?

Which one is it? They love it as long as the individuals being canceled do not agree with their political views. That's it. That's how it works. Isn't it amazing that the Joe Rogans and the Bill Mars of the world have never once shown an example of right wing cancel culture? No, because they surround themselves with right wingers who, listen, they surround themselves with right wingers who just repeat, regurgitate the same thing over and over again. Joe Rogan is one of the most impressionable people I've ever met. It's like a five year old. I'm just keeping it real.

He does, if he's in the room with someone who's left wing, all of a sudden he sounds very left wing. He's in a room full of right wingers. All of a sudden, he's like a far right winger in his commentary and his opinions. That's who Joe Rogan is, which is why it's a little like, I wish he wasn't so impressionable. I wish he would actually speak up for himself and form decisions or form opinions that he genuinely believes in rather than just being agreeable with anyone who's in the room with him.

But putting that aside, look, fact of the matter is everyone in this debate is such a hypocrite and it's so infuriating because it's the same cycle over and over again, the right wing puffing their chest, claiming that they're total warriors for free speech, then they go after individuals pretty aggressively who don't agree with their speech. Yes, everyone gets annoyed with the finger wagging on Twitter. A lot of that figure wagging is carried out by the left, the so-called online left. It's annoying, but to equate that with individuals who literally go out of their way to fire people, to do away with the livelihood that individuals rely on in order to feed themselves and their families,

to keep a roof over their heads and their family's heads, it's just a completely different animal. And that's what Ben Shapiro was advocating for there. That's what Libs of TikTok was advocating there, where they would frame educators who were just trying to provide a comfortable, safe environment for students who might not be, you know, heterosexual, they wanted to get those teachers fired because they disagreed with them creating an environment that was safe for students who might have a sexual orientation that's different from the norm. They wanted those teachers gone and they succeeded in getting many of those teachers fired. That's why lives of TikTok was so incredibly nefarious. Yeah. And by the way, as we told you before on the show, the person who started

cancel culture was Barry Weiss. She now, then she ironically, like Trump did with the issue of fake news, he did the fake news during 2016 campaign, and then he claimed others did fake news. Barry Weiss tried to, went around the country trying to get professors fired if they ever dared to criticize Israel or support Palestinian human rights. And then she went and turned around and said, can you believe people are trying to get people fired? It's cancel culture.

She is the biggest liar I've ever seen, the biggest hypocrite ever, and Bill Maher missed it. He's like, oh, Barry Weiss, champion of cancel culture. Ben Shapiro, his dear, dear friend that he has over and over again. He goes on his show, they go on shows over and over again. And Ben Shapiro says, fire everyone who disagrees with me. Bill Mark, just can't find it. He's a leftist, supposedly, a liberal. And he's like, I'll cancel culture from the right.

I don't know, all my friends are right wing. I can't see it. By the way, it's not just those guys. It's almost everybody on the right. Steve Bannon has said a number of times that Trump should have shock troops if he wins again and he should fire, you should do mass firing of thousands of people inside the government. Because if you disagree with the right wing, they want you fired because they love cancel culture. They love, just say it.

If you're right wing here, just say it. I love cancel culture and then we're done with it. We'll leave you alone because at least you're not the world's biggest hypocrite. But as it is, you know you're not going to say it. Instead, you're going to pretend the left wing is doing it. Again, we win, you lose because we have all of the facts and you have none of them. All right, let's finally move on from the story because there's other news to talk about, including an update on the Senate race in Pennsylvania. Dr. Oz decided to support Trump's unfounded and insane claims that the 2020

election was rigged and stolen from Donald Trump. And he did so in the context of a debate. Dr. Oz, of course, is running for a Senate seat in Pennsylvania. So this was during the Republican primary debate for that Senate seat. Moderators asked whether it was time for the GOP to move forward as Trump continues to talk about the 2020 election. Now, what did Dr. Oz say? Oz said he had discussed the 2020 election with Trump and that, quote, we cannot move on. Interestingly enough, his primary opponent, another Republican, David McCormick, said it was a tragedy that most Republican voters in Pennsylvania didn't believe in the integrity of the election.

And of course, over and over again, Oz pointed to the fact that Trump endorsed him, particularly over his chief foe, former hedge fund CEO David McCormick. Now, it is interesting because this wasn't always Dr. Oz's position. He was actually asked point blank, what would you do if you were a senator in Pennsylvania? Would you certify the votes for Biden? And here's what he had previously said. If you were a sitting senator in Pennsylvania, would you have certified those votes for Joe Biden? I think by the time the votes had gotten through the entire process.

And remember, what ended up happening in my Commonwealth of Pennsylvania is that there was not a timely and effective adjudication of what went down. So now you're in this legal quandary. And the question is a Republican is, am I a law and order guy? And once the law was broken in a place was way before I'm supposed to decide. I didn't have a choice. And I would have done, I would have voted to certify to preserve our constitution. We don't want to ever be in that situation again. He would have certified the votes.

He was very clear there. Yeah. No, the thing about Dr. Oz, I'm sure that he in some ways is a very smart person, right? I mean, he, you know, surgeon, you know, he's done some quackery in the past. I get that as well. But he's not a dumb guy, but he thinks everyone else is dumb. And that's a problem. Because that video that we just showed you is not from that long ago, clearly.

And he just thinks everyone forgot, including the right wing voters who continue to attack him for very clearly flip-flopping due to his own political ambitions. Yeah. So look, I have an interesting perspective on this because I'm Turkish. So I've known Dr. Oz from a while back and the Turkish community has known him forever way before he went on TV because he actually was one of the best heart surgeons in the country. So the Turkish community, since it's small in America, was super proud of Dr. Oz when he was a heart surgeon. He goes on TV and some people were like, well, I mean, I don't know why you got to do that.

I mean, why don't you just stay a heart surgeon? And I thought that's not fair, especially because I'm a talk show host. So I didn't mind that. But a lot of people were like, okay, then he started doing a quackery on the TV show. And a lot of Turks were like, oh, that's super embarrassing. You were one of the best surgeons in the country. Why are you saying nutso stuff on TV? Just what for fame and money?

You already had money. What do you need this for? It's never enough. It's because it's never enough. Now he goes into politics. Brother, you had all the money in the world, all the fame in the world, all the, what else do you need? No, he's going to debase himself and he's going to go kiss Trump's ass. Now remember, Dr. Oz is Muslim.

I mean, I don't know what his religious affiliation is these is, but he's Turkish, I'm positive he was born Muslim. Trump said we should ban all Muslims from entering the country when he was running for office in 2016. And here this guy is kissing his ass publicly. That is humiliating. I don't know, a single Turk left now in the country who isn't deeply embarrassed by Dr. Oz. So look, you've changed all of your positions. Your Republican opponents are loathsome, but they are correct. change your position on pro-life, pro-choice, you name it, you switch your position.

And that tells you he'll do anything for power, anything. It's a disease. There's just no end to the greed. And that's what you're seeing unfolding with Dr. Oz. And it's one of the saddest things I've ever seen. Yeah, and despite the endorsement from Donald Trump, some of the more prominent right-wingers, certainly on platforms like Twitter, have been pretty aggressively going after Dr. Oz. and they're specifically calling him out on his not so distant past.

And the things that he supported that certainly do not agree with what rabid right wingers want in this country as we speak. So I just want to show you one more video that highlights all of that. I believe this is a political ad that was put out by his Republican opponent, David McCormick. Senator Clinton, one of the smartest people I've ever met, is absolutely right. Dr. Oz has spoken about some of what he thinks should be done. We have to have affordable health care for all. Affordable health care for every single American.

I joined a bunch of leaders, Hillary Clinton. I'm excited by this. Senator Clinton, one of the smartest people I've ever met, is absolutely right. They've shown videos of him supporting women's right to choose. By the way, these are positions that I think are great. We should have freedom in this country. We should allow women to make decisions over their own bodies. They've shown segments where he's talking about transgender youth, and he's doing so in a much more supportive way.

And now all of a sudden he claims that he's not in favor of transgender youth. He wants to ban transgender students from being able to participate in the sports that they identify with, gender-wise. It's just, and I love to see it. I love that the right wing is calling him out on it, not because I support the other right-wing candidate, not at all. But I do like the fact that for once, there's someone in a position of privilege who's being called out for just being an empty shell of a person who doesn't have a true identity, who doesn't have principles, who doesn't even have values. The only thing that people like Dr. Oz care about is themselves. They don't care about the country. They don't care about the constituents that they claim they want to represent.

They're just representing themselves, their best interests, and they want to accumulate more power for themselves. That's who Dr. Oz is. So honestly, I love seeing them fight. They should continue fighting because people like this deserve to be called out. Yeah, I mean, look, on the Republican side, it's a murderer's row of terrible people. David McCormick kept calling him Mehmet during the debate. Usually people call each other by last names. It doesn't have to be every time.

But it seemed like he was trying to emphasize that. Mehmet's the Turkish version of Muhammad. And so, and by the way, David McCormick ran one of the largest hedge funds of the history of the world. And so, and he's gotten money from tons and tons of bankers, financiers, et cetera. And all of them are probably going to go up against, or whoever wins, I should say, is going to go up against John Federman, who has a 30-point lead in the Democratic primary. Fetterman is a bad ass populist progressive. I can't wait to see that big money, big hypocrisy, big lies against a real progressive. Can't wait to go to work on those homes.

Go support John Fetterman. Everybody on the Republican side is terrible. And at this point, I mean, look, his answer to the transgender issue had so many terrible parts to what Dr. Oz's did. But including, he's like, oh, he said, I was just doing that for the networks. That's what the networks want. Well, which one is it, man? Are you saying, oh, when I was on TV, I was lying because that's what TV executives want,

so I just did it for money? Or are you lying now, and you actually believe in transgender rights, but you think I have to kiss Donald Trump's ass, I have to be a terrible, hateful person in order to win in a Republican primary. Either way, deeply embarrassing. All right, we got to take a break. When we come back, we're going to lighten the mood with an American hero who surprisingly resides in Tallahassee, Florida.

Come right back. What I want to know, Jank, is if the creators of Seinfeld are upset that BART Kyle has decided to steal their music for the show today. That's funny, that's funny. BART, I love you. F around and find out. All right. By the way, speaking of funny, I am sock wrote in the member section. We do our Turk of the Year and Jerk of the Year.

He said, Dr. Oz is the Turk Jerk of the Year? Good point, good point. And oh, one more point. If you missed the conversation today, earlier today, Brianna Wu, Executive Director of Rebellion Pack also decided to put in 10,000 of our own money. We believe in this. We believe in this. And we're going like the right wing scams their own voters. We put in our own money instead of taking it out. So Brianna's amazing for doing that. And she's seeing if you guys can match her 10K, help the rebellion.com.

We've got to win the Nina Turner race. Let's go do it together. Anna. Let's get to our next story. activist gadfly, pain in the ass, taxpayer, and of course, beer maker. Ah, yes, Chas Stevens, not only a beer maker, but an American hero who resides in Tallahassee, Florida, he has decided to take the right wings cancel culture in his home state and twist it to fit his own narrative, and I absolutely love it. So he is in a tizzy over the fact that conservatives in Florida have been banning books in public libraries, books that they don't like, books that they don't like, books that that tend to deal with issues pertaining to race and sexual identity.

And so he decided, well, since these new Florida laws empower residents in the state to petition to ban certain books, why don't I participate? And that's exactly what he did. He filed a petition to ban the Bible from public libraries. In petition sent to public school superintendents across the state, Chaz Stevens asked the districts to immediately remove the Bible from the classroom, library, and any instructional material, Stevens wrote in the documents. Additionally, I also seek the banishment of any book that references the Bible. He says, my objection to the Bible being in your public schools is based on the following seven points, offered for your learned consideration. And then Stevens, of course, proceeds to question whether the Bible is age appropriate,

for anyone who's read it, not so much, pointing to its, casual references to murder, adultery, sexual immorality, and fornication. Do we really want to teach our youth about drunken orgies, he asks in the petition? Now, I love this. I love him, and he's had a long history of activism. It's very similar to what we're talking about right now. We're going to show you some examples. And believe it or not, he's actually been successful in carrying out these stunts.

they end up working, he also took issue, by the way, to many biblical references to rape, bestiality, cannibalism, and infanticide. In the end, if Jimmy and Susie are curious about any of the above, they can do what everyone else does. Get a room at the Motel 6 and grab the Gideons. Grab the Gideons. He's amazing. Grab him by the Gideons. So look, the article says that he's doing this tongue and cheek, and obviously he loves doing it in a humorous way. But there is a serious point there. There's a very serious point. The Bible very likely, not under our rules, but under the right wing rules, should be banned.

There are literal orgies in the Bible. People sleep with prostitutes nonstop in the Bible. There's over the top violence, but I know the right wing doesn't mind the violence, but they mind the sex, right? I mean, they're talking about, oh, in a math problem, there might have been race or sex or something, right? In the Bible is nonstop sex. No, it's like it's an episode of the Sopranos.

Like that's what the Bible is. No, but before we give you specific examples from the Bible to really make our point and help, you know, bolster the point that this wonderful activist is making here, I do want to explain what really set him off because I'm sure Stevens was annoyed from the very beginning as books having to do with race or the LGBTQ community were being banned. But once they started attacking the math, that's when Stevens had had enough, okay? Love this guy. So the 57-year-old Deerfield Beachman says his ire was stoked after Florida lawmakers decided this month to ban 54 math books that were claimed to have incorporated topics such as critical race theory.

I love the algebras, says Stevens, who studied applied mathematics in college. And those Tallahassee lunes just banned a bunch of arithmetic books. I love it. He referred to them as tallyloons, which I didn't know was a nickname for people from Tallahassee. But it sounds fun. The right wing from Tallahassee, apparently it is. So if it wasn't before, it is that I love the word algebras. This guy's awesome, man.

As usual, we ask the right wing, can you please make up your mind? Do you want the books banned or don't you want them ban? If you want to ban, if you have any sense of factual consistency, you must ban the Bible. Not my rule, it's your rule. Now, I had mentioned that his activism has worked in the past. And of course, we're talking about Florida where conservatives managed to do certain things that are questionable, especially when the government isn't supposed to be endorsing a specific religion. And so I want to talk a little bit about what he did.

And so Florida, especially in South Florida, they were having these government meetings. They would start these government meetings with a prayer. And he found that objectionable, because again, you're not supposed to be doing that. And so he started petitioning to be allowed to do his own Satanist prayer in the beginning of these government meetings. And since the government is not allowed to endorse one religion or the other, they had no choice but to offer him the space to do his Satan's prayer. So I'm going to give you an example of what that Satan's prayer look like, and then I'll tell you what the aftermath was. Let's take a look. As Stevens, a Jupiter resident and self-proclaimed minion of Satan, has asked to lead invocations to

Satan at area commission meetings in South Florida cities after the U.S. Supreme Court ruling in May 2014 that allows prayer at city and county commission meetings. After two years of applying to lead an invocation, Stevens was finally accepted by Lauderdale by the sea. Open the gates of hell to come forth so as to greet us, though who have understanding as your brothers, your sisters, and elected officials. Deliver us, the good residents of Lauderdale by the sea, people of Broward County and this august body, almighty Satan, from all past error and delusion. Everyone in that room was so uncomfortable. It was so great. It was so great. Real quick, you know what ended up happening? A bunch of these government meetings decided to drop the prayer. Of course they did.

No, look, guys, for people who are atheists, we don't get it. For religious people, they think Satan is real. So when he's doing that Satan prayer, they're scared Satan's going to come in the room. That's why they're like, well, sick they're. They're like, we've got to get out of here. Here comes meals above. Here comes meals above. And they're worried about it.

They're worried about it. Look, the cops are worried about it. The cops were like, oh, jeez, I'm Lord mercy. Don't shoot anyone. Don't shoot anyone. Okay, okay. We thought Satan came in, we thought he had a gun. Yeah, no, I mean, come on.

So, okay, great job on that video, by the way. So we're gonna read you the Bible quotes as well. For our religious viewers, I love you guys. And there's a wonderful side of religion. I say it every time we help the poor, the needy. I've seen wonderful Christians do it, wonderful Muslims, Jews, etc. Do it. And so there's great sides.

But if you take it literally, it leads to these kind of absurdities. And that is what fundamentalists do. They take it literally. So. Yeah, and look, the point that I want to drive home, and I hope everyone understands this distinction, okay, I have no interest in being needlessly antagonistic

toward people of faith, okay? I genuinely believe in what this country is supposed to support, which is religious liberty. And that includes the freedom to not be religious, right? So I would, if anyone tried to do away with people's religious liberty, their ability to have faith, I would fight against that, even though I'm not a person of faith. With that said, though, you practice your faith, let me practice my non-faith, you know? Let us live. Let us live in this country as free human beings.

But I do want to give you some specific examples from the Bible that, you know, you might not want your kids to read about. So let's go to Genesis where that portion of the Bible says, Judah said to Onan, sleep with your brother's wife and fulfill your duty to her as a brother-in-law to raise up offspring for your brother. But Onan knew that the child would not be his. So whenever he slept with his brother's wife, he spilled his semen on the ground to keep from providing offspring for his brother. What he did was wicked in the Lord's sight.

So the Lord put him to death also. Wicked. Although. Oh, wicked, my bad. Okay. Whipped would be fun too. It would add to the story. We just got banned in the state of Florida for reading the Bible.

This is way more graphic than any book that they pulled off the shelves in Florida. None of those books talked about spilling the semen all over the floor, having sex with your dead brother's wife. and, you know, doing the withdrawal method, and then God executing you for it. Lots of animal cruelty also. If a man has sexual relations with an animal, he is to be put to death. And you must also kill the animal, although animals should be left alone. The animal didn't make that decision.

Yeah, but no, God says he did, and we're putting the animals. I got two more for you guys. This one's Exodus 42426. We're doing Bible study today. At a lodging place on the way, the Lord met Moses and was about to kill him. That's not nice. But Zippera, interesting. I think that's the name of a website these days too.

But Zipra took a flint knife, cut off her son's foreskin, and touched Moses's feet with it. Curious choice. Surely you're a bridegroom of blood to me, she said. So the Lord let him alone. So if you're having troubles with the Lord, cut off the foreskin, touch it to your feet. If you don't touch you to the feet, it doesn't count. And then finally, we go to Ezekiel, 23, 1920. Oh, this is my favorite.

It's very naughty. This, if the Bible's in the classrooms, the kids could read this. And I'm telling you if you got kids now, have them stopped watching the video because this is about to get it super dirty. Here we go, Ezekiel. Yet she became more and more promiscuous as she recalled the days of her youth when she was a prostitute in Egypt. There she lusted after her lovers whose genitals were like those of donkeys and whose

emission was like that of horses. Why are we talking about the emission of horses? Okay, so guys, you can get wonderful things out of the Bible, the Koran, the Talmud, the Bhagwad Gita, etc. But this stuff is also in there. If you think that's literally true, God bless, okay, it is what it is. We live in a free country, you're absolutely allowed to believe that, okay? But I'm a little skeptical, okay, obviously.

But if you're going to ban books because they mention sex, it is in arguable that you must ban the Bible. Yep. And I am happy to hear that Chaz Stevens is not only an awesome activist, but he's a beer maker as well, along with being a taxpayer. This is a good American. And I would love to have a beer with this guy. Oh, yeah, yeah, absolutely.

Next time we go to South Florida, maybe. And then the next time I get in trouble with the Lord, I'm going to touch it to feed with it. Okay, no way. I'm sorry, guys, I'm sorry. But come on, really? All right, just something to think about while we go to break. When we come back for the second hour,

Trump has had a little bit of a change of heart when it comes to Vladimir Putin and his invasion into Ukraine. We'll give you the details on that and more. Don't miss it. Could it be saying? Thanks for listening to the full episode of the Young Turks. Support our work, listen ad-free, access members-only bonus content, and more by subscribing to Apple Podcasts at apple.com slash t-y-t.

I'm your host, Shank Huger, and I'll see you soon.